A blog recording the lead up to running my first half marathon... and associated meanderings.

Saturday, 29 September 2012

The Day Before.

It's been a strange couple of weeks.. I pushed too hard in training and haven't run since. Didn't really want to blog about it in case I cursed my recovery.

So, despite it being a while back, I'd got a couple of decent runs at the beginning of the week, my legs felt great with 8 or 9 miles in the bank, just the sort of thing I want leading up to a race.

Then came Thursday, on Thursday it all went off the rails a bit. For some unknown reason my foot was really quite sore when I woke up, it felt bruised, particularly on the top. I couldn't work out how it got that way and the only conclusion I can come to is that I must have done up my shoe too tight and then run not noticing. A bit uncomfortable but I still managed 4 miles.

After a days rest it didn't feel a lot better, but with the run in 2 weeks I (perhaps foolishly) decided I needed to do a long run anyway, then if need be take some time to let things mend which might take a day or two, and maybe I'd miss a run.. So a cup of tea and some ibuprofen and I set out with the plan of mirroring the last weeks route, but without the ice cream, and maybe with a couple of stops along the way. It wasn't the most comfortable run I've done, and in places my foot got downright painful, but I pushed on anyway (maybe this was another clue it was a bad idea). The pain really kicked in around mile 10, as I think you'll see from the numbers.

Distance 13.1mi
Duration 1:58:59
Avg Pace 9:04
kCal 1549

Split

Time

Distance

Avg Pace.

Summary

1:58:59.2

13.10

9:05

1

8:18.1

1.00

8:18

2

8:44.8

1.00

8:45

3

9:25.7

1.00

9:26

4

8:49.5

1.00

8:50

5

8:30.7

1.00

8:31

6

8:53.0

1.00

8:53

7

9:12.4

1.00

9:12

8

9:06.5

1.00

9:07

9

8:32.1

1.00

8:32

10

9:22.1

1.00

9:22

11

9:44.8

1.00

9:45

12

9:34.2

1.00

9:34

13

9:50.2

1.00

9:50

14

:55.4

0.11

8:40

Anyway, I'd done race distance, but was still a couple of miles from home, and visibly limping. So, I walked about a mile to try and shift it, that didn't work and actually seemed more awkward than a slow jog, so I did 1.5 more miles at a 10.04 pace then stumbled through the front door a bit of a wreck...

By the Monday I was limping constantly, and got shooting pains every time I fully weighted my foot, I even had to pick my shoes carefully as some were just too uncomfortable where my foot seemed to be bruised, the only option left to me at that stage was rest, so I haven't run at all in the 13 days since then, and surprisingly it's made me a bit grumpy at times.

Rest seems to be doing the trick, and the pain has been less every day. As a little test I tried 20 minutes on an elliptical trainer last Wednesday evening whilst I was away in London for work Obviously it's not the same with no impact, but the legs still feel ok, which is a good sign, and I reckon my foot is about 90% good now, so it'll do..

Tomorrow it's the race, I've not quite followed the plan perfectly, I've had a few little injuries, but I've made it this far and suspect (perhaps with the aid of a couple of ibuprofen) that I'll make it round just fine and live to fight another day.